Chapter 33 Part 2

……

Because it had truly been far, far, far too long since he’d been called by that name. Over twenty years. So long that he had forgotten Li Xuan wasn’t his original name.

~

By the time Li Zhuo learned of the matter from the news, nearly a month had passed. It was just three days before university registration began.

That day, Li Zhuo and Mo Liang had been out having fun in a neighboring city. They visited a couple of scenic spots in the morning, and in the afternoon, they wandered from one end of a popular night market to the other.

They didn’t drive home until dusk began to fall.

Shortly after getting into the car, as Li Zhuo idly scrolled through his phone, he saw the news in his social feed.

“What’s wrong?”

The driver’s seat in the front was empty, the car seemingly controlled by an invisible force. However, neither of the two passengers in the back paid it any mind.

Li Zhuo shook his head, his expression complicated. “Li Xuan passed away at home… I really didn’t expect it… Ah.”

Even though he didn’t like this so-called older brother, truly hearing about the passing of a living life stirred a faint, complex emotion within him nonetheless.

After the previous incident in Hai City, regarding all matters of the Li Family—whether good memories or bad—Li Zhuo had locked them all away in a drawer deep within.

The grievances of the past made it impossible for him to harbor no hard feelings, yet the kindness in his heart prevented him from becoming ruthless. So, he could only choose to forget.

Mo Liang’s pupils were a sheet of icy indifference. On the surface, however, he adopted the System’s manner from before and sighed. “It was his own illness, combined with an air conditioner malfunction. It was just his bad luck…”

“Oh…”

At this, System 0255 was full of admiration.

The truth was, Mo Liang had known of this news well before Li Zhuo saw the report. He had also swiftly ordered the System to obscure any previous search results.

Those punctual monthly bank transfers, along with those short, simple messages… the person behind them had actually been Li Xuan.

【Don’t tell him.】

【He will definitely soften his heart, and that would be meaningless. I don’t want my child to be unhappy.】

【Besides, this is not important.】

These were the words Mo Liang had spoken at the time.

From the moment he arrived in this world, he had wanted more than once to kill every single human who had ever hurt Li Zhuo. Upon learning that a protagonist’s death would impact the world, he began searching for loopholes in the rules.

And in the end, he really did find a loophole.

For example, although every protagonist possesses a Protagonist Halo, and a protagonist under a Halo cannot die, the problem is… a Protagonist Halo can also disappear.

One flower, one world; one leaf, one Bodhi.

Most Small Worlds have a central protagonist who is definitely safe from harm. But the protagonist isn’t a fixed position. Or rather, the Protagonist Halo doesn’t permanently follow one single living being.

The Protagonist Halo is something with a limited duration. It can vanish, and it can also shift.

Just like the undulating curves of a person’s Bazi Fortune Cycle or the waves on an EKG monitor—there are rises and falls. Nothing remains constant forever.

Even a Small World that replays itself won’t have every single detail exactly the same as the last time.

The entrance of a new protagonist is inevitably accompanied by the exit of an old one. That is how the stage of destiny works: you finish your song, I take the stage.

It’s very much like the change of dynasties in human history. The ruling class never disappears, but every so often, it changes to a new face, a new appearance…

But its fundamental nature never changes.

Of course, Mo Liang couldn’t grasp such profound, deeper meanings. He simply felt that this human had hurt his child, and therefore, he had to do something about it.

The Li Family’s affairs had, after much circling around, come back into Li Zhuo’s hands. Mo Liang had already long since cleaned up everything from top to bottom. He just needed to find the right moment to tell him.

But now was clearly not a good time.

The child’s hormone levels had dipped slightly compared to their usual state. Therefore, for the latter half of the drive, Mo Liang didn’t bring up any related topics.

He began to do what he usually did often: gaze at his child without blinking, as if admiring a precious treasure. Perhaps because his stare was too intense, Li Zhuo, who had been looking sideways out the window, suddenly turned his head and met his eyes.

The light and shadow from outside the car window slowly glided across the youth’s face. In the interplay of this flickering light and dark, his skin looked as if steeped in moonlight, coated with a soft halo.

Out of the blue, Li Zhuo mentioned the books Mo Liang had prepared for him before—records detailing the development and destruction of various other civilizations.

“I just suddenly feel the universe is so vast. Compared to so many grand and brilliant civilizations, my own world is so tiny… and the tiny me upon it is even more insignificant…”

Perhaps Li Zhuo really was just speaking offhandedly. But Mo Liang instantly responded, “How could that be?”

He gently stroked the top of Li Zhuo’s head, just like that first time they met in the corridor of Changyang High School.

“You occupy my entirety. You are not small. You are big, very big, truly…”

Mo Liang stretched his hands as wide as they could go, yet still couldn’t physically represent Li Zhuo’s weight in his heart. So, he said that Li Zhuo was even larger than the combined mass of all living things in this world.

Li Zhuo suddenly burst out laughing.

Seeing him laugh, Mo Liang mimicked his smile.

Their eyes met mid-air.

Looking closely, Li Zhuo noticed that Mo Liang’s pupils, perhaps not so obvious in the daylight, possessed a distinct, icy metallic sheen at night.

And Mo Liang, in turn, discovered that Li Zhuo’s eyelashes were two fewer than the day before. His irises were amber-colored. When the dim yellow glow from outside the window fell upon them, they looked even more like twinkling stars in the night sky.

He had already grown increasingly striking, and with Mo Liang layering countless personal filters onto his own child, the sight was pleasing to the eye no matter how he looked at him.

“Truly adorable…” he murmured.

The man’s voice was too low and quiet for Li Zhuo to hear. Just at that moment, the car coasted into a long tunnel, plunging his vision into utter darkness.

When humans lose their sense of sight, their other senses—smell, touch, and hearing—are temporarily amplified. Li Zhuo could clearly hear the deliberately controlled breaths of Mo Liang, feel the temperature radiating from his constant-temperature skin, and hear the sound of wind whooshing outside the window.

Without knowing why, he suddenly asked, “What if I die one day…?”

“Then I will search for you, time and time again. Even if I forget who you are, I will remember that you are very important to me, and rely on instinct to find you!”

Li Zhuo almost subconsciously countered, “Like this time? You’ll approach me with a different identity?”

Mo Liang beside him didn’t directly say yes or no. Instead, he countered with his own question: “What makes you so sure that this was my first time searching for you?”

Li Zhuo fell silent.

“Time in a three-dimensional world is a river rolling ever forward. In your eyes, the past is unchangeable, the present is unfolding, and the future hasn’t arrived yet—with clear boundaries between them. But for some civilizations in other dimensions, time is not like that…”

“Time is not linear; it’s interwoven and nested. For me, different timelines are like different fruits growing on a tree?”

“Some I can’t remember clearly. I may have visited more than one ‘future,’ but I only want to stay in this one…”

In the dim light, Mo Liang’s expression was as calm as ever, yet his tone grew firm. “But it doesn’t matter. No matter how many times it takes, you never need to be afraid that I will hurt you. Maybe just a moment ago, my main body was hunting down 382 versions of ‘me’ in a parallel universe who didn’t meet you. Want to touch them? The energy remnants of them might still be warm.”

Li Zhuo didn’t make a sound, just staring at him silently with those dark eyes.

“I was kidding,” Mo Liang said. In the next second, he added seriously, “My child, you only need to remember one thing: I will never allow anyone to hurt you. Not even myself…”

The man looked at Li Zhuo with a gaze brimming with intense adoration. Their breathing unknowingly synchronized, but it still wasn’t enough.

He wanted to be closer to his child, to lean in nearer to him, to merge with him, to never be apart from him…

Mo Liang confessed openly, “I want to kiss you.”

Objectively speaking, as a non-human, Mo Liang possessed an extraordinary capacity for learning and imitation.

When he first kissed Li Zhuo, he had only lightly licked his lips, seemingly just wanting to absorb a bit more of his scent, to feel a little more of his warmth.

Later, he gradually learned that kissing involved opening one’s mouth.

Of course, Li Zhuo himself was a complete novice with no experience. It was through repeated interactions and practice that he slowly learned and explored, growing more skilled over time.

To humans, a kiss is simply a universal act of expressing affection. But to a non-human, this behavior is no different from placing your life in the other’s hands.

In their world, information about one’s own DNA is a secret of paramount importance, requiring the strictest security.

Just imagine—if an enemy obtained your genetic code, they could learn all sorts of information about you and even manufacture a bio-weapon specifically targeted at you. How terrifying would that be? The slightest misstep could lead not just to individual demise, but even to the extinction of an entire race.

Therefore, every time they exchanged DNA, Mo Liang would add another layer of strict encryption to his child’s information.

Later, he gradually grew to adore kissing. To avoid frightening the child, he would desperately suppress the restless stirrings of his other bodies beneath his human guise each time.

——They too longed to get close to the child. But without the child’s permission, they could not come out arbitrarily.

The light inside the tunnel was extremely dim. Cool wind gushed in continuously through the half-open window, yet the fair youth in the car felt no chill at all.

In the dark interior, Li Zhuo’s vision was obstructed. He couldn’t see Teacher Mo’s expression, only able to glimpse his familiar silhouette and perceive his actions.

The non-human being was completely devoid of human shame or moral sensibilities. During the kiss, he simply registered a change in a certain aspect of his child and perceived it as his need.

Naturally, he lowered his head, using past experience to make his child even happier. ——His oral cavity would alternate between slightly cool and then warm again, completely adapting to the child’s expressions and the fluctuations of various hormone levels.

【My child is very happy.】

【I am… also happy.】

~

Feeding Log

1: Child’s daily skeletal growth rate decelerated by 0.032%. Tibial vascular network deviated from last week’s holographic model by 0.7 pixels. [Simulation Plan Attached.]

2: A new melanocyte formed on the skin of the child’s carotid artery region. Malignant pathology has been ruled out. Suspected causes: ultraviolet exposure and hormonal changes. Added to daily observation.

3: Lysozyme concentration in child’s saliva dropped by 0.7 ppm. Must not let him eat that kind of nutritionally worthless junk food next time. Not even if he whines cutely.

4. Child’s spermatogonial cell activity increased to 82.3%, a 7.5% rise from last week…

5.…